Clarifying hospital-acquired conditions (HAC) and present-on-admission (POA) conditions represent just two additional aspects of medical record inspection CDI specialists are frequently asked to perform. Determining whether a condition was actually POA and not a HAC helps coders sequence...Read More »
A patient’s medical record could include a laundry list of diagnoses, but not all of these conditions may be reportable. Coders must determine when they can report conditions as “other” secondary diagnoses and when they must simply leave them off the claim entirely.
Q:I know that in an inpatient setting coders are allowed to use suspected diagnosis when a definitive diagnosis cannot be determined. However, we have had some trouble with physicians using the term “rule out” or “differential diagnosis”...Read More »
Nearly 550 CDI professionals have registered to attend the 4th Annual ACDIS Conference in Orlando, April 7–8. That means more of your peers will be available to network with, share experiences with, and learn from. It also means that those who have already made their reservations have booked up...Read More »
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) called it the largest healthcare fraud sting in history. On February 17, the Medicare Fraud Strike Force charged 111 defendants in nine cities, including doctors, nurses, healthcare company owners and executives, and others, for alleged...Read More »
If the data is true, the population of a couple of concentrated areas in California suffer from kwashiorkor syndrome, a type of malnutrition typically seen among children in third-world countries, according to...Read More »
Q: AHIMA’s 2008 practice brief, “Managing an Effective Query Process,” appears to allow the initiation of post-bill queries as a result of an audit or other internal monitor. Historically we believed that a query completed after the initial...Read More »
